No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."
The Bible couldn't be clearer, right there in the Book of Matthew: chapter 24, verse 36.
But doomsayers have sworn since at least Roman times that they're better sourced than the angels themselves, boldly trotting out predictions down to the day for the Final Judgment, when, Christians believe, Jesus will descend to earth and set off a chain of events resulting in the end of the world and a new heaven.
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The Rev. Richard Lunsford looks at the front... View Full Size
Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images
The Rev. Richard Lunsford looks at the front page of a local newspaper that reads "Judgment Day" outside the Oklahoma City National Memorial in Oklahoma City, June 11, 2001.
May 21, 2011, is the latest attempt to get a jump on Judgment Day, courtesy of Oakland, Calif.-based Family Radio, a nonprofit evangelical Christian group. And, assuming we're all here to follow up, it will make a nice addition on May 22 to this random list of predicted Second Comings we've survived so far.
1. Let's start with Family Radio, whose president, Harold Camping, predicted the End of Days before: Sept. 6, 1994. Camping had been "thrown off a correct calculation because of some verses in Matthew 24," a company spokesman told ABC News this month.
The Christian radio broadcaster is apparently more confident this time around, spending big bucks on 5,000 billboards, posters, fliers and digital bus displays across the country.
2. Edgar Whisenant didn't get it right the first time, either, when he predicted a mid-September 1988 Rapture, even publishing the books "88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988" and "On Borrowed Time." No Apocalypse, no problem. The former NASA engineer simply pushed his predictions off to three subsequent years and wrote books along the way, none of which reportedly sold as well as the first two.
He died in 2001. We're unable to confirm where he's awaiting the big day.
3. Jehovah's Witnesses first anticipated the end of times in 1914, now noting on their official website that "not all that was expected to happen in 1914 did happen, but it did mark the end of the Gentile Times and was a year of special significance."
4. In the century before, renowned New England Baptist minister William Miller triggered what ultimately became known as the "great disappointment" after his failed prophesies that Christ would return sometime between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1844, and then on Oct. 22, 1844.
5. More recently, Pastor John Hinkle of Christ Church Los Angeles told a Trinity Broadcasting Network audience that the "most cataclysmic experience that the world has ever known since the Resurrection ... is going to happen," according to the Christian Research Institute, which is home to "Bible Answer Man."
Hinkle said God, "in the most awesome voice," told him that "on Thursday, June the ninth [1994], I will rip the evil out of this world."
You might have missed it, however, because the prophesy came to pass invisibly, he said, according to the Christian Research Institute.
6. Chuck Smith, the prolific author and senior pastor of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa in California, turned to scripture and simple math to prepare his flock for the Tribulation. "If I understand Scripture correctly, Jesus taught us that the generation which sees he 'budding of the fig tree,' the birth of the nation Israel, will be the generation that see the Lords return," he wrote in his book "End Times" (1978). "I believe that the generation 1948 is the last generation. Since a generation of judgment is forty years and the Tribulation period lasts seven years, I believe the Lord could come back for His Church any time before the Tribulation starts, which would mean any time before 1981. (1948+40-7=1981)."
"I could be wrong," he wrote in "Future Survival" (1978), "but it's a deep conviction in my heart, and all my plans are predicated upon that belief."
Smith was wrong and has not only abandoned his prophesying ways but since has looked askance at others who have gone down that road.
"The Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, thought the world was sure to end in 1914," Smith wrote in his book "Dateline Earth: Countdown to Eternity" (1989). "When it didn't happen, they merely moved the date up a few years."
7. The prophetic-sounding year 2000 inspired too many doomsday predictions to list here. Suffice it to say that, in hindsight, there was really no need to party like it was 1999.
Let’s Pray: “Father, thank You that Your Word is true and we can depend upon Your Word at all times and for all things, in Jesus’ Name, amen.”
Daily Confession:
Father, I thank You for making me the head and not the tail
Above only and not beneath
The lender and not the borrower
The conqueror and not the conquered
I thank You for giving me all things that pertain unto life and godliness
And for delivering my life from death and destruction
So that I shall live and not die to declare your works
I thank You that no sickness shall live in my body today
For by Your Stripes I'm healed
I confess that I will not be stressed, oppressed, or depressed
Because You're keeping me in perfect peace as my mind is stayed on Thee
I confess that there shall not be any lack in my life today
For my God shall supply all my needs according to His Riches in Glory by Christ Jesus
Thank You that all things are working together for my good
And that You always cause me to triumph
This is the day that you have made
I will rejoice and be glad in it
In Jesus, Name, amen.
Daily Prayer: “Oh, that You would bless me indeed,
and enlarge my territory,
that Your hand would be with me
and that You would keep me from evil,
that I may not cause pain!”
The Prayer of Jabez, I Chronicles 4:10
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