A Little Folding of the Hands...

There is hanging on the walls of our home office paintings of cats. The ones clearest in the photo are of Big Cats, not lions in this case, but a tiger and a leopard. We've had these canvases for years; for decades. They are reasonably large, I suppose, three foot by two foot. They are not particularly heavy for they aren't framed. Well, I guess that isn't quite true, there is a frame of light wood over which the canvas has been stretched and fastened. See, we often look at something and admire it and forget what it may hide underneath. We forget there is a not-so-lovely wooden frame behind the image.

There is also, hidden, rather thin nails that hold these pictures on the wall. I can't see the nails, but I know they are there because I am the one who hammered them into the wallboard sometime ago. They are there, but I ignore their presence, not certain whether they have become bent with age or if the hole they occupy has wore.  I have put out of mind that these pictures stand only as long as the pins that hold them remain straight and true.

The title of this post is taken from verse 33 of Proverbs 24.

Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep:

Yes, I know in context this line refers to laziness. But there are many reasons for a little folding of the hands.

To pray is one, for many of us were taught to fold our hands while speaking with God. It's a sign of honor.  Some even fold their hands to show respect and honor to others. There are a great number of people in Central Pennsylvania who could use some folding of hands in prayer at this time.

This is because of another purpose for a little folding of the hands, a representation of doing nothing when something should be done. There is probably a lot of folding of hands, or more precisely, a wringing of hands now by some or many who folded their hands and went to sleep over some recent years.

What happened at Penn State should be illuminating to us all. It should give us all pause.

Here we have a great institution sullied by one pin in its wall. A sin, any sin by any one, may have grave consequences for all. Eve took a bite of fruit and she shared it with her spouse and they tried to cover it up and look to where it led? A man became an icon and a VIP and he started a worthwhile charity (if perhaps not for so worthwhile motives) and he befriended people upon pedestals. But this man was a bent nail and when someone noticed the bend all the others folded their hands.

Now a legendary coach is dismissed and disgraced. A large university is rocked and socked and heads have rolled. The worthwhile charity is wavering, perhaps to fall as well, because of the bent nail at its foundation.

Do not think sin, big or small, of commission or omission does not have consequences in this world.

Proverbs 24 has other things to say. Verses 10 to 12:

If you falter in a time of trouble, 
how small is your strength! Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter.  If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,” 
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? 
Does not he who guards your life know it? 
Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done?

Some men of stature saw a troubling thing and they did not take steps to rescue those being led away, those whose childhood and innocence was being slaughtered for the pleasures of a predator, much a wolf in sheep's clothing. Do you think they now see they are receiving their due according to what they have done?

Figuring Figs

I was thinking about fig trees again. This is probably because I am a nut. Now I know that figs are not nuts, but now a days we Christians are considered by the world to be nuts, at least, if we really mean it. It wasn't always so. When the picture of me as Mr. Peanut was taken, saying you were a Christian was perfectly acceptable.  (The photo was taken in 1951, I was ten years old and just won a costume prize in a Halloween Parade. My grandmother had made the suit out of long underwear and a potato sack.)

I also know that peanuts are not nuts, but legumes. But that is beside the point. Frankly, I am not certain why being called a nut is an insult. Nuts are very nutritious and healthy. They are also something which grows and brings about new life. Isn't this part of the commission of being a Christian?

Anyway, I want to talk about Fig Trees and the End Times, and I know when we dare venture into this whole arena of Christ's Second Coming, we get branded as double nutty. Well, I'm not a date setter or any of that stuff, but I am somebody who believes that the Apocalypse is getting closer and it has something to do with a fig tree. So the first thing I want to discuss here is (wait for it) fig trees.

Let me present a harmonized version of Jesus with the cursed fig tree:

The next day early in the morning as they were leaving Bethany, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry.  Seeing in the distance a fig tree by the road in leaf he went up to it to find out if it had any fruit, but when he reached it, he found nothing on it except leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to it the tree, “May you never bear fruit again! May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it.

 Immediately the tree withered.

 When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?” they asked.

 Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

Matthew 21:18-22 and Mark 11:12-14 Luke 21:29-31

(Now if you want a detailed look at this instance, then you can go to my series called, "Russelling the Fig Tree" consisting of several posts about it beginning with this one, Cliches and Round Abouts. )

I believe the fig tree here was a sign and a substitute for Israel and Judaism. When did this occur? After Jesus had entered Jerusalem to the cheering crowds waving fronds and calling him king, what we Christians call Palm Sunday. These people had blossomed along the road like leaves on the fig tree and it would seem there was the promise then of fruit, of the acceptance of their Messiah.

Yet, here was Jesus along with his Apostles kind of hiding out in Bethany after that event, not being welcomed into the Temple in Jerusalem by the leaders of the faith at all. He was keeping away because there were plots to have him killed. Instead of it being time for the bearing of the fruit of his ministry, it was time for him to die for mankind. He was coming down from Bethany for that purpose, for the Passion Week.

What happened to the fig tree with its leaves, but no figs? It withered and no one would eat its fruit again. This is exactly what happened to Israel after the rejection of The Christ. They withered and their people were carried away and dispersed across the world, the nation was no more and their Temple was torn down. Their religion could no longer be practiced as the Law of Moses demanded. It appeared they were done as a people.

But in that very week, Jesus spoke to his disciples about a fig tree as a sign of his Second Coming.

“He told them this parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees when they sprout leaves. Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: you can see for yourselves and you know as soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things happening, you know that it, the kingdom of God, is near, right at the door.”

Matthew 24:32-33, Mark 13:28-29 

The fig tree of Israel sprouting leaves again. How could that be? Israel was gone, its inhabitants gone. But again, Scripture had predicted Israel would arise from dry bones as a nation again, because God had made promises to Abraham and his descendants and Israel must exists for these to be fulfilled, which is why there have been so many attempts by the world to destroy israel. Yet in 1948 there it was again and today it stands where it stood and its people are back. But what does this mean? It means summer is near when the fruit will appear. It means Jesus is at the door.

But many other things were to happen when this fig tree appears and it will find itself encompassed about by all of the world, against it, ready to rip it out by its roots and cast it on a fire. And then we will soon see Jesus return.

I suggest we watch the end of this month, specifically September 28 through the 30th.  No, I am not predicting dates for anything, just saying we should take note of these days in light of the world turning against Israel, a dangerous thing to do. On September 28 an United Nation vote looms on the status of Palestinian Statehood. Which ever way this vote goes, I think it will result in wrath against Israel.

September 29 is Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year, the time it is thought the Hebrews were freed as slaves in Egypt and also the time in is believed that God created the world. Certainly a date for new beginnings. It also is believed according to Jewish tradition that it marks the time when God decides who will live and who will die.

It may be interesting to see how this month plays out for the fig tree.

From Hero to Obscurity

Words often have many meanings. We hear hero we may each draw a different picture in our mind. It is the same with the term obscurity. Erase what you may be thinking for these are the synonyms I want you to accept, hero as celebrity and obscurity as inconspicuous.

This is the case with twelve men Jesus selected to be Apostles. Some stood out and today we might call them stars -- Peter, John, James. Others hovered in the background on the border of anonymity -- Simon Zealotes, Lebbaeus, James ben Alphaeus. The rest occasionally stepped to center stage and had their 15 minutes of fame, then retreated again into the background. One gained eternal infamy.

Of course, the "stars" we know quite a bit about. They are all over the Gospels and even wrote some books of their own. The "obscurity", not so much, which is why they are obscure. You can Google these fellows and maybe find a lot of verbiage about each, long entries in Wikipedia perhaps. But if you read carefully, as you should, somewhere in the articles will be the phrases, "According to tradition" or "the legends say".  For my purpose here I prefer to stay only with what the Gospels and Book of Acts tell us.

I just want to talk about Jesus' meeting these guys. So for the moment, let's settle back in our seats, with our popcorn and juju fruits and watch a film or two or three portraying the "calling". 

The scene begins with this Hippie-looking guy, long hair and beard flowing in the sea breeze, blue eyes reflecting the water, strolling down the beach. He is all sunshine and flowers. He looks over and sees several fisherman fooling around with their nets. He waves and calls out, "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men!" The men immediately drop their gear, dash across the sand and off they go, a jolly band. 

Next scene, Jesus traipsing across a hill side in silhouette against the sun with twelve men single file ambling behind. 

Wow, that Jesus had some charisma! What did he do hypnotize those fishermen?

As usual the Hollywood take and the public perception of Biblical events is a wee off.

First of all, that calling by the Sea of Galilee only involved four of the twelve and it wasn't Jesus' first contact with them. (Read what really happened at "Jesus Calls His First Disciples" in Nitewrit's Own Companion and Commentary of the Gospels.) 


The four men Jesus called to follow him that day were two sets of brothers, Simon Peter and Andrew, and James and John. Three of these Jesus had met about a year earlier and he had probably spent a good deal of time with them over that period. John and Andrew were the two followers of John the Baptist, who had pointed Jesus out to them after Jesus came out of the wilderness. Andrew fetched his brother  Simon and they spent the rest of the day with Jesus. (Read John 1:35-51.)  James is never mentioned as being there, one of the few times in the Gospels where James and John aren't mentioned together. Perhaps James had stayed home to tend the business. Probably John filled him in when he got home and both brothers spoke with and traveled with Jesus during the coming year.

It was in Bethany at this same time that Jesus met Philip of Bethsaida and Nathanael Bartholomew of Cana. We do not know what Philip and Nathanael Bartholomew did for a living. Bartholomew is the Greek for the Aramaic "bar Tolomy", so his name was Nathanael son of Tolmay. Tolmay might have been his father's name. Tolmay also translates as "furrows; thus Bartholomew can be "son of the furrows", thus his occupation might have been farming. We know he was from Cana from later Scripture, after Christ's resurrection when Jesus meets five Apostles along the sea. These four are listed (John 21) as the two sons of Zebedee (James and John), Nathanael of Cana in Galilee and two others. One of the others is quickly revealed to be Simon Peter. The other is not identified. Perhaps it was Peter's brother Andrew or maybe it was Philip. Nathanael and Philip seemed to be close friends.

It is very likely these four men had traveled to Bethany together to be with John the Baptist. It is plain from the text they were seeking the Messiah, so they had a common purpose. This also indicates these were devout Jews who knew Scripture and prophesy. They knew the time was ripe for the appearance of the Messiah. Philip lived in Bethsaida and so did John and Peter. Nathanial lived not far away in Cana.

When these four (assuming James was not there with John) accompanied Jesus back to Galilee, their first stop was at a wedding in Cana. Some have even speculated this was the marriage of Nathanael, but that would not fit the wedding customs of those times. Most likely they went to the wedding because Jesus was invited. His mother was involved in it. It was convenient to leave Nathanael there in his home town.
(You can read the full story of these meetings and early travels with Jesus in my Companion.)

So, to recap, before this so-called calling of the Apostles, Jesus had already befriended and spent time teaching six of them: Simon Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip and Nathaneal Bartholomew. On the day along the seashore when he said, "Follow me and I will make you fishers of me," it was to the first four in this group. These four are always listed first in the listings of the twelve, with Peter always at the top. We hear more about these four throughout the Gospels than any of the others, although not as much of Andrew as the other three. Even so, there are passages indicating Andrew was included is private conversations between Jesus and this group.

As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John and Andrew asked him privately, “Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?” Mark 13:3-4


Andrew may have been something of a gatekeeper at the top. He would interact between others.

The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus. John 1:41-42

Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus. John 12:20-22

The second group that are always named together are Philip, Nathanael Bartholomew, Matthew and Thomas, with Philip always listed first. If the first group are the heros, the stars, these are those who get a scene or two in the limelight throughout the Gospels. Like the four stars, two of these fellows knew Jesus from the time he had been Baptized by John and returned from the wilderness. When Jesus actually called them to follow on his ministries, we do not know. It may not have been long after he called the first four off their boats.

The only other of the Apostles where we have information about him being met by Jesus and called is Matthew Levi. Jesus had come off a boat into Capernaum, where he was living then, he stopped by a paralyzed man and had a confrontation with some teachers of the law. After curing the man, Jesus went on into town and saw this tax collector at his collection booth. He called to this man to follow him and the man did. His name was Matthew (also Levi). Right after this Jesus has dinner at Matthew's home along with other tax collectors. Here he has a confrontation with the Pharisees over the company he keeps.

This is all we know about any of the "callings" of the Apostles.

The last member of this middle group is Thomas, known as Doubting Thomas to most and also known as Didymus, which is the Greek for Thomas. The name means "The Twin". We don't know if Thomas was actually a twin or not. We also don't know where Thomas was from, what he did for a living, where he met Jesus or how he was called.

The last group I haven't called The Obscurity for nothing. About all we know of these, with the exception of Judas Iscariot, is the names. They appear in the lists of the twelve, always with James son of Alphaeus listed first. We do not know when Jesus met or called these people.

It would seem it was in proximity of when he called the others. It is not that far into his first Galilean ministry when he calls them together and selects them as Apostles.

So you see, the calling of the Apostles is a bit more complex than usually presented in pop culture.  In fact, even the term of Apostle is misunderstood. First these men were disciples, along with perhaps many other people. A disciple is a student, someone learning from the teacher. When Jesus called Peter, Andrew, James and John to follow they did so as disciples. After some time went by, Jesus called a number of his disciples to a private place on a mount and there he select twelve to be Apostles. Although Apostles may continue being disciples, that is still learning, disciples aren't necessarily Apostles. Apostles are Messengers, people capable to taking the message to others and teaching others to be disciples. These men were called to be disciples, they were selected to be Apostles.

Hold Your Four Horses of the Apocalypses (Yes, Apocalypses)

Left, William Miller - "Jesus Christ will return between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844."

Okay, for those impatient for the end of the world there is good news. You do not have to wait until December 21, 2012. The new date for the end to come is October 21, 2011. We have that on good authority, one Harold Camping.

Now I don't know for sure if Mr. Camping reads my Blog, but apparently he has picked up on my suggestion that God, being patient and loving, might delay the finale. This seems to be his explanation from the little I have heard so far today.

Right, Mayan Calendar: "The world will end on December 21, 2012."




Camping had, of course, actually predicted October 21 to be the end of the world. What he claimed would happen on May 21 was the Rapture and a great worldwide earthquake and the beginning of Judgment. He now says God, being merciful, put all that off to October 21, including the Rapture of the Campingites.  I do not know if that is the proper term, but I know many people are afflicted with Campingitis.

Left, Harold Camping: "The world will end in 1994 maybe...er, make that May 21, 2011 absolutely...uh, let's say October 21, 2011 and I'm pretty sure this time, I think."


Why? Because God in his mercy would not even put sinners through the hell of the next five months if that earthquake has happened.  Now it will all be over with very quickly. Much more quicker that the predictions of Harold Camping seem to be over.

For my wife, here is the bad news and the good news. October 21 comes too late to get her out of Jury Duty in July or August, but she will get to celebrate one more birthday. Given there will only be about a week left, though, I probably won't get her anything too expensive.

I said in my past post I thought Camping was sincere and he believed in his own research, but if he came up with another date I'd begin to doubt that sincerity. Now I am even a bit suspect of his so-called deep Bible study that determined all this dating. I am beginning to think he may have been dipping into some old-time Adventist literature. Not just this setting dates thing, but his teaching there is no Millennium Rule of Christ and no Hell; that the unsaved simply cease to exist.

Left, Charles Taze Russel: "The Second Coming of Christ and the end of the world will be in 1914."  [I don't know if there was a 21st of anything in there.]







William Miller put the date off a few times, saying he must have miscalculated his math somewhere (where have we heard that before) and others decided it had happened, but as a spiritual thing and the real bad stuff still awaited God's decision (which seems familiar, too). Russel, who was influenced by Miller made a couple more stabs at it after 1914 came and went, but like Miller, died before the end came. That is because those guys were born too soon and couldn't possibly have lived to October 21, 2011.

I suppose I will be writing another post about these non-events on October 22, 2011. Unless the Lord should come before then, certainly a possibility.

You see I do believe in Christ's Second Coming, in Judgment Day and in the end of this world. Here is what I have to say about the date. I don't know it. You see, someone once said, "No man knows the day or hour," someone with much more authority that William Miller or Charles Taze Russel or even Harold Camping, a gentlemen known as The Lord Jesus Christ.

Let the Mocking Begin - The Lions are Hungry

Well, that was pretty anticlimactic. I didn't expect anything, of course. Even so, can I admit, I still felt a bit disappointed. But the only thing that happened on May 21 was a volcano erupting in Iceland.

This is the largest eruption in Grímsvötn in 100 years. (They probably don't have records going further back.) It is bigger than that other volcano eruption last year that shut down air flight in Europe for so long. Iceland has shut down air flight at the moment.


So one big spit in your eye from Mother Earth is all we got on "Judgment Day". That is something, anyway.


Think if the largest eruption in 100 years had happened on Tonga early on in the expectations yesterday, around 6:00 PM their time. That would have shaken some people up for sure, until nothing much happened anywhere else.


Here we are on the twenty-second, safe and secure. The bars are or have had their "End-of-the-World" Parties and the churches are having their sermons on false prophets. Family Radio is still on the air. Some people are pitying "those people" and some are making fun of them. For the world at large this makes for great sport.


Howard Camping may have missed the mark -- again, but you have to give him credit for one of the most successful marketing campaigns in history. In all my years I often heard advertisers claim, "The product everyone is talking about."  This is the first time I have really heard everyone talking about it. Everywhere I was this week, everyone I saw, this subject came up. I heard jokes in passing on the street, mentions at work, statuses on Facebook, tweets on Twitter and monologues on TV. There were articles in each newspaper we subscribe to, on the front page no less. It came up both in a poem and in discussion at my Poetry Group meeting on Thursday and again in discussion after the Open Mic at Borders on Friday. It was the postings of many Blogs. I went to the hardware store to buy some dirt yesterday and everyone in the store, customers and clerks, were making comments about the day and what was predicted.


Now by the time I was in the hardware store we knew it wasn't happening. 6:30 PM of the 21 May had already come and gone in much of the world. It was already Sunday, May 22 in Australia and Japan; all of Asia I suppose. I had coincidentally set out to buy my dirt just as it struck 6:30 PM in Jerusalem. When the Temple Mount did not split apart I figure we could definitely relax.


There is much speculation this morning about what Mr. Camping will do now. He is 89 years old, time is running out for him to recalculate and come up with something new. I think Mr. Camping was sincere about his vision, that he truly believed in it. If he comes up with a new date, then I probably won't feel that way anymore. When he wrote and predicted that September in 1994 would see Judgement Day he wrote a book called 1994?. (Boy that makes for awkward punctuation.) There was a question mark and within he mentioned 2011 might actually be a possibility if it wasn't 1994. He gave himself an out.


He left himself no out this time it would seem. He guaranteed it. He said it would absolutely happen. It didn't. End of story with no possible twist to another announcement left, right? 


I can think of one. 

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. Jonah 4:1-2 (KJV)

 Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle? Jonah 4:10-11 (KJV)

Why in the world would I think these couple quotes from Jonah could be used by Camping as an out? You remember Jonah? He was that prophet whom God told to go one way and instead he ran the other, got on a ship and tried to get away from it all. You know, the guy who ended up in the belly of a great fish that everybody keeps mistakenly calling a whale. There is a lot we can say about the plight of Jonah and Christianity, Jesus and salvation, but Jonah doesn't have anything to do with Judgment Day, the end of the world or Harold Camping, does he?


Well, it could have if we think about Jonah's situation. Why did he run away from what God asked him to do? For that matter, just what did God ask him to do anyway?


God asked Jonah to go to this terrible city called Nineveh, a place so full of sin that God planned to destroy it. He told Jonah to warn those people if they didn't straighten up and fly right they would be toast,  and Jonah didn't want to do that. Why?


Because Jonah had a bad attitude to begin with. He hated those Ninevehian, uh—Ninevehites...uh, those people of Nineveh. He didn't want them saved, he wanted them flattened, but he feared they just might repent and God wouldn't smite them, which is exactly what happened. This made Jonah really sore at God. Jonah tells exactly what his feeling were. "And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil."


Harold Camping actually used this story of Jonah recently in explaining his coming Day of Judgment. He used it as urging everyone to repent, but also to show how God was patient and sometimes spared people and places because of his compassion for the few who were not sinners. You can find several such examples in the Old Testament.


It would be quite possible to put forth that God was ready to pronounce judgment upon the world, but out of his desire that no one be lost postponed the date. The reason would be there are some who God knows will come to Salvation yet and so a new Judgment Day must occur. 


As a Christian, who believes a real Second Coming of Christ must eventually come on a day and hour no man knows, I am not effected much by what Mr. Camping does or doesn't do. I do take what he did seriously, though, as causing great harm.

It certainly harmed many folk who choose to put their faith in Mr. Camping. Some of these will suffer as a result of this fiasco. But so will we Christians who argued against his interpretations all along. The world isn't going to be overly discriminating between some of what we believe and what they have been hearing preached for many moons in the media leading up to May 21. No, the mocking began in earnest last week and it will continue for a while, and in the future anyone proposing Judgment Day is at hand will be quickly compared to Mr. Camping's crusade.


Christians are fair game these day, as the Bible told us we would be. We have plenty of those out there quite willing to feed us to the lions, if not in actuality, at least figuratively. 


Jesus left us in the dark as to exactly when he would return or when Judgement Day would be. However, he and other prophets left us with a number of signs that will point more and more to that time as we approach it. As a younger man I used to be mystified reading the prophecies, the events that would begin to happen, and yet the Bible said men still wouldn't turn to God or believe this was from Him. I wondered how knowing such happenings before they happened anyone could deny they were from God. But it recent years I have heard many discussions that would put in place excuses to not believe God had a hand in such things, for instance "Global Warming". 


This May 21 will make it more difficult to get anyone to seriously consider such prophecies if we begin to recognize a quicker pace in the signs of the times. People will simply compare any such warnings as akin to Camping's folly.


Remember as well, December 2012 lies ahead. Expect more media coverage of this other prediction of the end of the world. Even though this one has nothing to do with Christianity, it will certainly bring forth much rehashing of the May 21, 2011, failure to launch and all Christian belief will be held up to ridicule as well.


As for me, I trust in the Lord. This is not a prediction of the end of the world, but a prediction of labor pains growing closer together. I would keep awake and keep my eyes on this September and the state of Israel. Yes, indeed, I would.

Within These Next Few Waning Hours

I suppose it is possible this could be the last post, a time I should be saying goodbye, so long, been nice to know you, my friends, what with Judgment Day coming by the weekend. And if I believed that this would be so, then this would be such a piece.

But I don’t believe it.

Still I am disturbed by some of the mocking comments being made about those who do.

It especially bothers me to hear a Sunday sermon opened this way: “Just so you know just in case the crazies are right and we don’t get to see each other next Sunday … listen today like this is the last day [here]”

The objection is not to simply say, “In case this thing happens, and we are not here another Sunday,  listen as if it’s true.” My objection is referring to these people as “crazies”.

As a Christian I will tell you what I believe. I believe in a God who created the world and universe. I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe in the Virgin Birth. I believe in the Bible. I believe in the Resurrection. I believe in salvation and a Judgment Day. I believe Jesus will return as He said He would, and following the daily news and seeing how events are occurring and the world is lining up; I believe that the Second Coming is not far off.

I presume this is what many Christian preachers also believe. So are we the “crazies”?

I would never call someone of faith a crazy or a nut case or a wing nut because they believe something different than I.  If someone professed to being Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu or Atheist (and yes Atheism is a matter of faith), would you dare to call them “crazies”? Obviously I believe they have placed their faith in the wrong beliefs. If I did not, then I would be a Jew or a Muslim or a Buddhist or a Hindu or an Atheist.

Obviously I believe Christianity it true. Otherwise, why would I be a Christian?

But because I disagree in where someone else has placed their faith, does not mean I think they are “crazies”.

I do not think Howard Camping or all these many people who have accepted his claims that May 21, 2011 is Judgment Day are nuts, nor do I think they are stupid. I just think they are wrong. If you have read the material put out by Camping you would not find some rambling mad utterances. It is very structured and intellectually presented. It is even convincingly logical, given Mr. Camping’s interpretation of Scripture. It is very understandable why many people would be willing to embrace it as the truth.

On the Family radio site there is a countdown clock. Today it reads “2 days to go”. But given Mr. Camping’s forecast of how it will begin, it is in reality just a bit more than one day away at the time I am writing this. It is his stance that a great rolling earthquake will begin at 6:00 PM on Saturday, May 21. It will begin in the South Pacific and will follow the time zones around the world, quaking in each area at their hour of 6:00 PM.

If this part of his prediction is true, then we here in my part of the country will know if it is happening sometime between 10:00 and 11:00 PM Friday evening. Why? Because it will already be 6:00 PM Saturday in the South Pacific just over the International Date Line. Of course if nothing happens at that time, it will not necessarily mean Judgment Day will not come on Saturday, only that this part of his calculation is wrong.

Of course, I expect nothing to happen, no worldwide earthquake, no Rapture, no Judgment Day…not yet.

If I am wrong and they are right, then nothing I have wrote matters. If they are right and I am wrong, then I will be among those facing condemnation by God, for that is what they believe. They believe if you cannot accept that Saturday is Judgment Day it is because you are not truly saved even if you think you are.

However if they are wrong and I am right, then on May 22 we are going to have a mass of disappointed and disillusioned people around this world, not the least of which will be Mr. Camping. This will not be something to gloat about. These will be people on the verge of losing faith in anything and some may be facing a very uncertain future. Some of these people have spent their finances and now will face difficult times. Some have split their families and will need healing. These will be people we should not mock, but instead show compassion for, reach out to with love and understanding. We should be prepared to help them back to faith in something and lift them up from their folly back into a life of true hope.

These people are not “crazies”, but like many, many others, they are just folks who lost their way for a while.